Recipe: Smoke & Whisper
Part of the “modern classics” canon along with the Bramble and the Paper Plane, the Penicillin cocktail is another creation of New York’s Milk & Honey, dating back to somewhere in the vicinity of 2005. Unlike those cocktails, however, bartenders around the globe have taken the basic recipe and tweaked it this way and that…
Book Review: Spirits of the Otherworld
Allison Crawbeck and Rhys Everett are the proprietors of the Last Tuesday Society’s Cocktail Bar, which is part of the Viktor Wynd museum. A quick search into Viktor Wynd reveals Vik to be a “pataphysicist, writer, curator, collector, dilettante, naturalist, and antiquarian… [who] has put on over 500 literary salons, curated over forty art exhibitions…
Review: The Glenlivet Illicit Still 12 Years Old
The Glenlivet’s latest single malt is a 12 year old expression called Illicit Still, in honor of founder George Smith, who illegally distilled his whisky in handmade copper stills secreted away in the Glenlivet valley near the river Spey. The first release in what the distillery is calling its “Original Stories” series, Illicit Still is…
Review: 2019 Real del la 8 Rioja Tinto
Alberto Ore should be a name familiar to fans of Spanish and Portuguese wines. His Sierra de la Demanda Tinto and Escalada Do Bibei labels were reasonably smart purchases a few years ago, and I still have a bottle or two hanging back waiting to be poured in a year’s time. Expectations ran high when…
Review: Old Forester The 117 Series – Warehouse K Barrels
Remember the hubbub over Old Forester’s 117 Series? If you don’t recall, it’s a new series of bourbons introduced earlier this year (with the High Angels’ Share expression) noteworthy for the fact that it bears OldFo Master Taster Jackie Zykan’s signature on the label — the first time a woman’s name has ever appeared on…
Review: Wines of Mouton Cadet, 2020 Vintage
A regrettable stretch of time has passed since we last touched based with the Mouton Cadet label from the Baron Philippe branch of the Rothschild family. If you’re unfamiliar with the weight of the Rothschild surname, ask the nearest conspiracy theory loving relative. They will be more than happy to regale you with Rothschild family…
Review: Booker’s Bourbon “Tagalong Batch” 2021-02
It’s time for batch 2 of Booker’s Bourbon for 2021, a bottling aged 6 years, 5 months, and 0 days. It’s call “Tagalong Batch,” not because of Booker Noe’s affinity for the Girl Scout cookies of the same name, but rather a celebration of how Noe learned the ropes of distilling from his grandfather Jim…
Book Review: At Home in The Wine Country
First, a bit of minor housekeeping: there are no wineries or wine to be found within the 240 pages of At Home In The Wine Country. Those would be found in the excellent companion volume The New Architecture of Wine: 25 Spectacular California Wineries which co-author Heather Sandy Herbert published back in 2019. So if…
